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International Development Assistance Support for Secondary Cities Development 185people to provide volunteer support to urban programmes. Engineers Without Borders(EWB, 2013), which grew out of support for the recovery of East Timor, has expandedinto a global network to provide volunteer support for urban projects in differentcountries. The Australian Planning Institute (PIA, 2005) support for building planningcapacity in regional towns and cities, in association with the former AusAID, is anexample of a partnership with a professional organization that has strengthened thecapacity of planners in towns and cities outside metropolitan Colombo, Sri Lanka.8.2.5 United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)UCLG represents and defends the interests of local and regional governments andtheir associations on the world stage through cooperation between local governments,and within the wider international community, regardless of the size of the communitiesthey serve. Through its decentralized cooperation programme UCLG enablesand encourages sharing and learning, particularly to promote planning instrumentsand methods, as well as inter-municipal cooperation on local, regional, national andinternational levels. UCLG is working more specifically within the Cities Alliancepartnership to promote and support Urban Strategic Planning and City DevelopmentStrategies (CDS). In recent activities, the increasing importance of intermediary citieshas been highlighted and identified as a priority for further engagement.8.3 Summary of Official Development Assistance of Urban-Sector ActivitiesThe extent to which multilateral and bilateral agencies have engaged in urban-sectorprojects and programmes has varied significantly over time and between regions andcountries. Some agencies are beginning to focus their aid and development-assistanceprogrammes geographically, in response to national policy agendas and prioritiesset by governments that are recipients of assistance. It is difficult to obtain accurateinformation on the value of aid and development assistance to the urban sector, sincemany projects are often included in regional-development programmes, which benefitboth rural and urban areas. Figure 8.2 shows how the general focus of multilateral andbilateral assistance to urban-sector activities under the broad heading of infrastructure,economic and social development, and environmental management, urban-governancesupport and engaging with the private sector.